Definition
An agreement to do something or go somewhere at a fixed time.
Local councils and other organisations talk about ‘engaging’ with people and communities to find out their views – usually about how services are designed or delivered.
The bigger picture
Engagement is something that services talk about doing to people. ‘Engaging customers’. ‘Engaging with users’. People are invited to ‘engage’ with services, but the term reflects an unequal power imbalance, where people are told where and when and how to contribute. It suggests people should come to organisations to help improve services, rather than organisations helping people, families and communities to do the things that matter most to them. There is also a military association – engaging in combat – reinforcing the idea of people on different sides – ‘professionals’ and ‘service users’.
Engagement is often used to mean co-production, but this is wrong, as there is not an equal and reciprocal partnership and while the result of the engagement may have some influence, decisions are still made by the organisation.
Often the language associated with engagement is blaming. People are labelled as ‘disengaging’, ‘hard to engage’ or ‘refusing to engage’ which suggests they are being defiant or stubborn, rather than choosing or deciding not to do something. It also ignores the barriers to people’s involvement that are created by services – for example, information that isn’t in an accessible language or format, buildings that people don’t feel welcome in, appointments at a time that don’t work for people.
Saying it differently
Don’t use engagement to mean co-production.
Use working with or co-production where people work together in an equal and reciprocal partnership to agree what good looks like and to achieve it.
Use engagement if people are invited to join something where decisions have already been made, and will continue to be made, without people’s full involvement at all stages. For example, if people who draw on care and support are invited to a meeting to express their views about a service, and their views have some influence, but the final plans or decisions are made without them.
What people say
“We might say ‘this person is disengaged’ and I always think disengaged from what? Like what does that really mean?” – Isaac Samuels
“‘The patient did not engage’. Well, whose fault is that!? Maybe that patient found it really difficult in that meeting because they didn’t understand the language being used, maybe the sensory environment was really overwhelming, maybe the venue had changed at the last minute and nobody bothered to tell them. You know, there’s a whole host of reasons that could be explored, and yet it can be written in a report and then set the tone of how everybody else works with that person.”